“You work from home.”
“Yes.”
“So, you’re home.”
“That’s… technically correct.”
Markie flapped his wings once. “TECHNICALLY.”
I shot him a look. On the other end of the line, my mother sighed in the long-suffering way that suggested she had personally carried the burden of my entire personality for twenty-seven years.
“You should see the boat,” she said suddenly. “It’s enormous. Twelve restaurants.Twelve, Zoey. I didn’t even know what to pick.”
“That sounds very stressful.”
“I had to make reservations three days in advance.”
My Slack notification pinged again.
Mom continued talking without pause. “And the buffet is unbelievable. Seafood, carving stations, desserts everywhere. I keep thinking you would love it.” She paused briefly. “You should have come.”
The familiar tug of guilt slid quietly into the conversation.
Not enough to be obvious. Just enough to hook. That was one of her better skills. She rarely came at me directly. She preferred implication. A soft little line laid across the doorway so I could trip over it myself.
“I’m glad you’re having a good time,” I said carefully.
“Well,” she said, “it would be better if you were here.”
Markie leaned forward. “GUILT DETECTED.”
“Please stop narrating my life,” I hissed.
“What was that?” my mother asked.
“Nothing.”
She sighed again. “I just hate the idea of you all alone out there.”
I stared at the wall. “I’m not alone.”
“Well,” she said, in the tone that meant she absolutely believed I was. “You know what I mean.”
Yes, I did. My mother had spent most of my life treating solitude as a temporary problem that needed solving. She preferred solutions that involved me rearranging my life around whatever situation she currently needed help with.
It had been like that when I was a kid too, just in smaller, meaner ways. We were “close,” which in practice often meant she had access to me at all times. My attention. My labor. My ability to stay calm when she was not. My willingness to handle all the practical things she didn’t want to deal with. The story she liked best was that it had always just been us. The less flattering version was that “just us” had mostly meant there was no one else between me and the responsibility.
“Anyway,” she continued, “I was thinking you could come stay with me for a while when I get back.”
I closed my eyes. There it was. The reason for the call.
“Mom,” I said gently, “we talked about this.”
“I know, but?—”
“I moved here because I needed some space.”
There was a short silence.
